


Journal of Jesse ██████

by RuvikKin



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: AKA its first person (?) and through multiple people, At least for the journal, Character Death, Dysphoria, First Person Multiple, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Journal type of story, M/M, Minor Violence, OC/OC - Freeform, Original Character(s), Religion, Supernatural Elements, Trans Male Character, Violence, artwork, non journal chapters are third person POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuvikKin/pseuds/RuvikKin
Summary: Jesse deals with his life after being arrested, and deals with his transformation from human to a supernatural creature.Written in a form of journal/letters with occasional chapter that isn't the latter. Contains characters from Red Dead Online, as well as OCs (ART TO BE ADDED TO FIC. CHECK FOR UPDATES!)
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I don't write a lot of OC stuff but I really do love my boy here so I wanted to write his story.  
> This is written in a journal/letters kind of like Arthurs journal is! There may be chapters that aren't written in a letter/journal format and I'll specify that before I post it!  
> If you want to see more of him you can head over to my toyhouse -> https://toyhou.se/Ruvikkin - Thats where I have more of him posted!


	2. Letter 1- To Parents

_ Its been awhile since I have written to you two. I suppose I have some explaining to do, don’t I? I’m sure you caught wind of my arrest and you want to know why I’m in jail. Let me start by saying that it was not my fault. _

_ I was heading into town to buy myself something to eat and possibly a drink, hadn’t been in town for more than a minute when someone was shot and killed. Whoever did it was near me, I didn’t see who did it and I didn’t intend on finding out but it all moved so quick and out came the law and they grabbed me. Thought I did it! _

_ I never fired my gun, I had one, but I never used it for anything outside of protecting myself or killing a deer. _

_ They grabbed me up, and locked me up for shooting someone I didn’t shoot. I was in a chain gang for a couple months, which is why its taken me so long to write. The damn law wouldn’t let me write a letter to you. _

_ I was broken out by a man named Horley, doesn’t look the type of man to kill someone but that seems to be what he was ready to do, had the lawmen escorting me and a few others to another location not obliged. He took me away, got me out of my chains and to a nice woman. Said her name was Jessica LeClerk. Turns out her husband was the man who was shot and she broke me out. She said that she knew I was innocent, broke me out to help track down her husbands killer. _

_ I am telling you that I did not kill that man, she knows it and I know it and she wants my help to find and kill the man who has. She paid off my bounty in town so I wouldn’t be caught up in anything as soon as I stepped into town but she did warn me that state Marshalls could come after me since I am, by law now, an outlaw.   
They dressed me, fed me, and led me to another man called Cripps. He’s a strange fellow but nice enough with good intentions, told me to pick a place to set up a camp where I could stay safe while I was hunting down a killer. Would you believe it but I ended up in the swamps, the slums near a place- Lemoyne. I had to steal a horse, they wanted to see if I had the guts to do what was asked of me so I stole a nice horse for myself. Named him Storm, he’s a big brute of a horse but I think we’ll get along all the same. _

_ I am not going to be hanged anytime soon, but I’m not sure if the rest of this business will get me killed, I can only pray it doesn’t. I’ll do all I can to keep in contact with you so you won’t worry about me, but I cannot tell you if all news will be good news. I’ve told Cripps if I die to write a letter to you and make sure you know how it happened. I won’t make you worry without a letter to hear from me. _

_ So much has happened in these few months and I’ve little time to write it. I will look forward to hearing from you. How is life in the west? How are my sisters? I hope you are all still in good health. _

_ Your Child _

_ ██████ _


	3. Journal Entry 1

_ Cripps saw me writing my letter and brought me a journal to write in. He said it looked like ‘I had a lot to say’. He’s not wrong, theres a lot I have to say but not a lot I want to tell my parents. I don’t want them or my siblings to worry. He also told me that he’s seen too many men lose themselves in the outdoors without something to do. Keeps the mind busy I suppose, a distraction from all the killing I seen to suddenly be doing. _

_ The journal is nice, leatherback and its not that big. Cripps is a good guy, talks a lot about things that I don’t quite understand but he ain’t bad. Sometimes he brings up old friends he used to hang out with, sometimes he talks about drinking. He calls me a good listener but I don’t have much to say, no stories to tell in the way he does and when I do feel like talking he starts up again. Strange man. _

_ As for Mrs LeClerk I’ve started to look into who her killer might be. Theres a few suspects she had pointed out and I don’t know who any of them are but she says they’re all crooks. Horley told me to meet him in Blackwater so I did that, met this crazy man who went on and on about how I was a bad man, or the devil, and then said I was a saint. Said I should help out some sheriffs around the area, which I wasn’t inclined to do until Horley told me none of them would know my face. _

_ I don’t like being called a bad man, I’m not a bad man and I don’t feel like one. Until Mr LeClerk was shot in Blackwater I’d never had to use my gun on another person. Now here I am, towing around shotguns and pistols for my own protection and to kill other people. Insanity, it really is. _


	4. Letter 2- To Family

_ Cripps wants to start a business. Out of everything, in the middle of hunting down a killer, he wants to start something with me! Well, pa always used to say I was good at talking people into doing deals so I figured I’d go along with it. _

_ A trader company, dealing with furs and pelts and making something with them. He told me I should hunt, provide the pelts and the animals and he’ll do all the dirty work afterwards. _

_ He’s hoping that it’ll get big, maybe we’ll have dozens of people working for us by the end of the year. If you’re hearing about “Cripps and Co.” some time then you’ll know it took off. _

_ Do you remember when I was a boy, and pa would preach to the neighborhood about the bible? About god? I wonder now that I’ve been in jail, and killed people, if there was any truth to it. I didn’t care much when I was a child I’ll be honest. It’s odd. Killing a man, watching him die, not knowing what happens after that. _

_ Tell pa to get in contact with god or whoever it is up there. I’ve killed, I don’t like it and I’ve never done it for fun. I’d like to still get into heaven with the two of you when you pass and I pass. Regardless of how I do, I want to. I haven’t been inside of a church, every time I get close to one I stop myself. It feels wrong now. Growing up a preachers son and being scared to go into a church. _

_ I miss home. _

_ ██████ _


	5. Journal Entry 2

_ On top of hunting a killer, and helping Cripps with his new trading company, I’ve been reeled into being a bounty hunter. And collecting items. _

_ The bounty hunter ran into me in a town, Rhodes, and she told me about all the money I can make for hunting down criminals. Spun the tale like someone would spin gold so, of course I paid my money to get a license to be a bounty hunter. Good bit of luck that did me, my first bounty got away and when I brought back the next- alive- I barely made six dollars. I suppose it’ll be good honest work for when I need to feel good about myself, it was nice being on the other end of the law for once. _

_ Another woman I ran into by the name of Madam Nazar told me she travels all over the country collecting trinkets and the like to sell. I bought a few maps and a shovel from her to start myself out and found a couple of items to her already. She told me to collect whole sets and I could be bringing in up to ninety dollars for each set of items. _

_ I brought her a tarot card, asked her what they were since I’d never used a deck before and she graciously handed over an old deck she had around. Told me she was collecting a certain set and that she had multiples of the one she gave me and explained some to me, gave me a little guidebook. Real nice of her, she told me it was ‘on the house’ for helping her get a new deck. _

_ I guess I am hunting, and collecting, and being part of the law now. Its all odd, got a lot on my plate and not a lot of time to do anything about it quite yet. I’ll try my best though, I’ve never been one to turn away from anything like this. _


	6. Journal Entry 3

_ Horley told me I needed to get together a posse if I plan to do anything more for Mrs LeClerk, too dangerous to go alone, he said. Hell if I know how to round up a posse, I can barely get a word out to anyone I run into and I’ve always been someone to run alone. _

_ I suppose he could tell I was uncomfortable because he introduced me to a nice woman, I never caught her name but she seemed more interested in the job than in talking so we kept it at that. Told the two of us to work together, see if it works out like that. _

_ I don’t think it did. She was nice, and she said I was nice, but she had somethin’ to her that I don’t think would work out for the two of us, but we did decide to get drinks together sometime, see who can out drink who. Though it was nice having a right hand person with me and I get what Horley meant by it being too dangerous for me to go alone. I suppose I’ll look into getting a posse, or at least a right hand man with me. I don’t like large groups, I was never good in groups of people unless I’m drinking. _

_ Eventually I’ll run into someone, or maybe they will run into me and we’ll form something, have an agreement on hunting a killer. I’m sure it’ll work out. _


	7. Journal Entry 4

_ Bounty hunting is nice, it gets the law on my good side and allows me to make sure my face isn’t plastered across all the states. It’s not that hard, most bounties just need tied up and whoever they are running with needs shot, and I get some money. _

_ I went to this strange little town, can’t recall the name of it but it wasn’t very big, there was a sheriff's office of course and a bounty board- only one bounty though. _

_ He was wanted alive for cheating during poker games and wounding a man. Nothing too major, sounded like a scuffle that got out of hand- it happens. I went to him, he was alone in his camp, shuffling a deck of cards while sitting at a table, its like he was waiting for someone to come up. He told me if I could beat him at poker then he would come with me without a struggle. Didn’t say what would happen if I lost but I took him up on the offer, sat down with him. _

_ We played four hands, he won two and I won two, a fifth and final one was played out. I lost, god damn it I lost, I knew it was going to happen considering what he was wanted for and yet I still had some hope I would have won. I was expecting a fight, to have to get up and grapple the man before I could take him in. The man well, he laughed at me and stood up, and then I’m not really sure what happened. _

_ It felt like I was shot but I hadn’t heard a gun go off. Strangest thing, I felt like I’d been torn away from myself, a pain through my body. The stranger was over me, I remember that, leaned down and told me something and god damn my soul I cannot recall what he said- something about hell I believe. _

_ I must have passed out, next thing I know I’m back in camp and Cripps is the one kneeling next to me, rag in hand and wiping away sweat from my brow. He told me Storm had brought me back and I’d been out for two days, some sort of fever he guessed, though he was giving me some odd looks for the rest of my time in camp. I got up, got myself some of his stew- very basic stuff I feel, I’d be better off eating mud some days- and I figured I should set back out to that town, it hadn’t been too far and I thought maybe the bounty board would have something. _

_ Strangest thing, no matter how hard I looked the town wasn’t around. I checked my map, even went out of my way to travel elsewhere and buy another map just to see if mine was outdated, and there was nothing about the town that I could find. Asked the shopkeep if there was any town nearby that wasn’t marked and he told me there wasn’t. _

_ I must be damned, I haven’t felt quite right since that day. Something happened, I’m not sure what, but whatever it was has left a hell of a feeling in my gut. _


	8. Journal Entry 5

_ I’m making a small name for myself, bounty hunting and all that. Cripps is real happy about it, says its been a long time since he’s had another person to work with who’s been so into things. Thats good, I suppose. _

_ I feel like I am lying. To him, to myself. _

_ To my family. _

_ Out here in the east, I’m Jesse. A bounty hunter, a man being hunted by law while also trying to help it out. _

_ Out in the west though, I’m my fathers daughter. _

_ I moved east because I wanted adventure, I wanted something more in life, and I wanted to be the person I felt I always was. A man. _

_ My parents wrote back to me ages ago that they never heard of my arrest and they thought it just hadn’t made it to the papers so far east. I think thats for the best. They shouldn’t need to know. The papers had me down as Jesse, not the name my family knows me under. No picture either, luckily enough, so they would never have known. _

_ Its been four years since I left home, since I changed myself. Took up the name Jesse, stopped using my old name. Its real easy, even more so since I started using that beard tonic. I can’t grow a lot, it doesn’t work so well, but I got somethin and people don’t see me as a farm girl anymore. I’m an outlaw, a man on the run from the law and my own past. Its better that way, makes me happier than I ever was just working at home. _

_ Though, I do miss my home. I would love to go there, be accepted by my family as the person I am now. It would never work. My father wants me to marry a man, settle and bring him lots of grand children. I don’t want that. Kids ain’t in my book, especially not in that way. Marrying a man I barely know either, I know my father would pick someone out, would never work. Call me old fashioned but I would much rather find someone for myself and fall in love that way, not by my father and mothers will. _

_ Would I be happy going home? Living out a life of a lie? A life of someone I am not? My town was traditional, I never knew anyone who felt the same as me. Women had kids on their hips, men worked farms or- god help me- banking. _

_ Even if I went home and my family accepted me for who I was the rest of the town may not. I could cost my family their lives, their money, anything else we had there. Farm could be burned down and then what? I couldn’t live with myself like that. _

_ And even so, if the town and my family accepted me, my father may want me to become a preacher like him. A son! The son he always mentioned he wanted to follow in his own steps and become a man of god! I can’t step foot in a church now, less so than I could even when I was a child. Feels wrong, gives me a strange feeling in my gut, like I can’t enter there and I shouldn’t ever. _

_ I can’t go back home, I love my family too much to ruin their lives, and I can’t stand the thought of bearing kids and wearing blouses even for their happiness. I couldn’t do it, I would rather take a blade to my heart than live that life. _

_ And with the life I live now, blades to my heart is the least of my worries. _


	9. Journal Entry 6

_ I was sittin by the fire tonight, staring into it thinking about things while Cripps was talking about things that I can’t make heads or tails of sometimes- something about a failed bank robbery he did? I wasn’t paying much attention to what he said. Regardless, he asked me somethin. _

_ Asked me if I’ve ever been in love, been with someone. Said I’m ‘too young to have not been stupid.’ and he’s right, but he’s thinking I might’ve been with a woman. _

_ There was a time, about a year before I left home, where I was in love with a man. Back when I still had my old name and I wore my hair up like some ‘proper person’. He was real nice, can’t recall his name though, helped work on my fathers farm for awhile- thats how we met. _

_ Well, I was young, and I was stupid, and we had each other. Back in the barn in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. _

_ I thought he felt the same about me as I did about him, and I think I wouldn’t have left home if he loved me. I wanted him, but he didn’t want to live on a farm his whole life and said there was more to life than being on a farm. I knew that, I knew that as much as anyone else and I know that now. I wanted to run with him, if he’d have asked I would have left with him before the words could’ve left his mouth. _

_ But he didn’t, he didn’t love me. Not like I loved him, and it broke my heart. He turned around, found some high society lady, and left working on the farm to do what her father wanted. I was young, and I was stupid, and I was damn lucky nothing came from it beyond that one night. _

_ Of course, I couldn’t just tell Cripps all of this- even if I said I was with a man then he might think lower of me than he probably already does, so I just short told him I had. I put myself in my one nights shoes and told him of a ‘pretty farm girl’ I’d met and been stupid with. He asked if I had any bastard children floating around and I told him it was unlikely. _

_ The conversation ended after that but I keep thinking about it. I wonder if it must’ve been a sign that I was supposed to do somethin else, not just be on that farm waitin for someone to come around. Think it tipped me, because within a year I left. I didn’t tell my father or my mother, my sisters, nobody what happened to him. They never saw us together and I’ve kept that secret with me for five years. _

_ If I had settled for that man years ago, I don’t think it would’ve been happy. I would have loved him, and I like to think he would’ve loved me, but he wouldn’t have loved who I really am. I would’ve never had the chance to be who I am now. _


	10. Letter 3- To Jesse from sister Charlene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a letter written from Jesses sister to him! Might do more like these because I liked how this came out!

_ Dear █████ _

_ Its been so nice hearing from you again! I’m writing to you as ma is ill- she’s quite alright the doctor says she’s just exhausted, and pa is busy working. Sarah is doing well in her schooling if you’re wondering, and I know you’re busy but I hope you ain’t forgotten about me. I’m 18 now, and pa is talking about getting me a man to settle with. _

_ Is this why you left? Pa mentioned it to you too, when you got real close to this age, and then you left home. I can understand it now. I was so upset when you left, but I know it now. I won’t leave home though, I think I’ll be alright here, but I also think I’ll have to keep pa off me about getting married. _

_ I don’t know if you truly care, but I can’t confide in him or ma the way I ever was with you, so I’ll outright say it. _

_ I don’t want a man picked for me, for the last year and a half the sheriff in town has been trying to win my heart, and by god he’s winning it. I know, you’re probably thinking it’s that old man who was there for years, but no. He had a son, two of them in fact. The older one is married already, but his younger one ain’t. He’s beautiful, says his name is Luis Alvarez, I think you would’ve fallen for him faster than I did. _

_ His sons rolled into town about two years ago, the old sheriff you once knew passed away, bless his soul. And his sons moved in to help keep things under control. The deputy felt it was time to retire but he deputized Luis before doing so, which made him sheriff. It all happened so fast! Only took a few months. His older brother didn’t want to be a sheriff, or a deputy, his family seemed much more important to him and once Luis was sheriff he took back off for home. _

_ Well, he has been nothing but kind to our family, and he’s about your age too. If you come on home I’ll gladly introduce the two of you, but if I see you trying to take him from under my nose I may have to hide you away. You always had a way with people, with men. I wonder if that came with being older. I’m the older one here now, and I’ve noticed a change in the way I’m looked at. _

_ I want to talk to him, perhaps see if I’m reading his intentions correctly, and see if he wants to marry me. Surely I’ll say yes, and surely pa will give his blessing. _

_ We miss you here at home though. I hope you’ll visit, or just come home. And I hope if you do neither that you don’t end up six feet under like you have all of us worried you may. _

_ You sister, _

_ Charlene. _


End file.
